Suspicious & Strange Items With Red Herrings 2

This page is for suspicious & strange items AND "Red Herring" items.
These are things like 'false cameos' where it LOOKS like it might be a Sonic thing, but then isn't. It's also for fishy things which look like bootlegs, but havn't been proven one way or another. Mysterious items that could be hoaxes of some kind (a hoax is something that doesn't actually get made/marketed, it's a trick played on people--so it's fake, but not really "real" as in for sale) also will appear in hopes of being solved. Items will be coming & going from the page, as they get proved one way or another. Things like red herrings will stay, as they have no other category to appear in.

Suspicious Items 1 * Suspicious Items 3 * Suspicious Items 4 *

What's going on here? This is a suspicious action figure. It looks like it's the 5 inch scale JW classic style Sonic, because that was the only one with the waist swivel. But then, look at the elbows & knees, they're not jointed at all, and if he was really the 5 inch, they should be. Also, the arms appear abnormally short. Is this a 5 inch size body with the wrong limbs applied? Why? Is it some kind of prototype mix up? It appears that it's likely a messed up stock photo or some kind of official mistake photo. There probably isn't a figure that's like this, and it wasn't meant to trick anyone. The photo was used at GK World AND Toys R Us Website website to sell the actual Jazwares Item, so it is likely an in-house JW mistake. (Fact by Taaron & Britsboy122)

Fry Am The Eggman - Futurama Episode Title
This is a red herring episode title. It has nothing to do with Eggman. It is likely based off of the song "I Am The Eggman / I Am the Walrus" , but made into a pun with Futurama character "Fry"s name & actual eggs as the plot. Fry hatches an egg, which turns out to contain a Bone Vampire monster & various plot points / comedy ensues. You can read the whole summary at Wikipedia Futurama Episode Page. Investigated & link provided by Victory494

This lanyard has an interesting design theme to it. It uses the different frames of animation for a classic Sonic sprite, placed one after the next. It can be found at Spencers Gifts (not known for shilling fakes), but it does not have any sort of official looking tag or copyright info. Is this real, or a well-thought-out fake? Photo & owned by Shadowfoxx757

Is this metal & enamel keychain real or fake? It would be nice if it were real. All of the art looks correct in the photo, but actual keychains seldom have that many characters all at once. Also, its shown on a Sonic X art card, while Silver wasn't in the show. Really, this item could go either way as there's nothing concrete to give it away as fake, nor prove that it's real. It sometimes appears on Amazon, but it's kept out of the Sonic Gear Store because it is unproven.

This lanyard is suspicious. At a glance, it looks ordinary enough, with quality-seeming clip & loop on the bottom, yellow fabric & dyed-in designs. It has the modern logo & only modern characters...so what's the problem? The Sonic is clearly a Sonic X art, but it's not an X logo. Then, the only characters here are Sonic, Blaze the Cat & Charmy Bee. The choices don't really make sense, especially if it's going for a Sonic X theme. There's no packaging but it's supposedly 'new'. What exactly is going on here? Is this the real deal or not? Discovered by SonicxAndTailsx

This suspicious Knuckles is sort of silly. The plush is clearly trying to be one of those "cutie chibi style" dolls, with it's tiny body, arms & legs. The expression is kind of 'crazy' or a bit 'eager' looking perhaps, but as you'll note, loads of official dolls also have that same expression. Other features hit at 'non bootleg' status, like the correct chest stripe, all shoe details being right, thick plastic eye parts that are properly colored & normally sized fists for that type/size of doll. However, there are no tags, no proof, and no retail area to prove it's real either. This is about 6 inches, so it is indeed as small as it looks here. What's going on with this doll? Photo discovered by Crystal Kitsune

A genuine hoax!
Around the time of Sonic & Knuckles, Sega Magazine had an actual hoax contest going on for a 1 million pounds prize. You had to "Rankles the Otter" who had sparkly ankles somewhere in S&K to win. Of course, nothing like that could ever appear, so any real fan would know that the contest was a joke.

However, someone used a color affecting glitch to turn Knuckles green, claim it was Rankles & prank the magazine right back! (Much like tha "Ashura" Sonic color glitch, where he's green with black) It makes for an interesting story that you can read right here in the photo. Plus, it tells you how to do it...maybe.

After finding the "Rankles" hoax contest above, many people wondered what this phony Rankles might look like...and now someone digs him up. This is supposedly the page from Issue 11, referenced above. The contest itself is listed 'how to' in the paragraph, but it is actually a false-front for the REAL contest, which is "Beat Sonic & Knuckles and describe the ending first". (Remember, there was no such thing as screen shots or email! You had to write in with a letter ahead of other entries)
As you can see lame old Rankles isn't anything good to look at, he's a super ugly mutated Knuckles art, with horrible stretched out face, ball-shaped spiky 'feet', erased chest stripe & lumpy head. It's interesting to see they actually faked-up some goofy art for their hoax.

Is this phone game a Sonic rip-off?
It's certainly suspicious. Look at the hood or hat or whatever that the dog/bear thing is wearing. It has some quite "Sonic like" spikes. Then, the blue coat/jacket creates the blue for the arms plus the 'belly dot' effect. Next, the character has green eyes. Just one of those things by itself wouldn't be that suspicious, but combining them all WITH a "Sonic like" font for the title (look at the "S" especially) and you have grounds for something that's rather suspicious. Discovered by: Speed

This dog costume is suspicious. Reason: It's terrible.
Is this dog costume for real? Probably not, on account of how bad it is. The poor dog even looks dissapointed to be wearing it. The shoe has no stripe, the back has 1 dumb looking spike, where's the tail? Where even is the DOG's tail? The 'legs' have 'shoes' so then why don't the 'arms' have 'hands'? The ears are also borderless, the whole thing is very un-Sonic-like. Plus, why would anyone want to dress up the dog as Sonic? This costume is totally dumb!....but, other official costumes have also been horrible looking so.....this is suspicious.

Here's a 'false positive' from a familiar place:
Jazwares. After Jazwares' time with the Sonic license ended (it was taken away from them and given to Tomy when Boom appeared in order to halt production of Modern Sonic merchandise) they tried for success with a new game

"Bungees Figures". They're magnet-based figures that you try to flick onto metal game board tiles to make them score points. But look at their designs & shapes. They're a little TOO "Chao-Like". The one in the illustration is pretty much a "Knuckles Chao" that they put some green lines on to disguise it. The white one is sort of "Sonic Chao" like, the purple certainly has the head shape going on as well. Are these actual re-purposed 'prototype chao figures'?
It can't be proven because the game/figures probably weren't released. (It would be super sad...almost everyone raised Chaos if they liked Sonic Adventure & having toys of all the different types would have been very cool) Discovered by Taaron

Here are 3 posters /wall scrolls and each one is suspicious. First, the Shadow with Blackdoom has him pulling his glove rather than holding a gun, as is usual for the game. The center looks good, using modern art on the CG GHZ background & including the logo...but it's described as 'printed on heavy cardstock'. The third has a nice selection of characters but mixes up the background, as that's Lost Hex, where most of the other characters didn't appear.

Out of the 3, the third is most likely to be a phony, but posters are difficult to point out sure-fire fakes, so here they go onto suspicious items. All discovered by Speendlex

Here are some fishy figures.
They look almost exactly like the Tomy Gacha mini figures that came out of the balls which you had to put together...especially the Knuckles there & the Werehog. But then, look at Silver's too-small head, Tails' shrivelled up tails & the fact that they did a blue/clear Shadow for no reason, while Sonic isn't in the set at all. The Tomy ones were sort of poorly painted (bad eyes--Shadow is crosseyed here) in many instances, but everybody's got their details here (Silver's white patch is barely visible, but its there) So what exactly is going on with these figures? They were listed under ToyStory on ebay, which also doesn't match. Discovered by SONIcustoms

Sonic All Stars Racing DID get an official arcade release.
But, did an official machine make its way to China? Maybe, or maybe not. This machine discovered in an arcade/games area called "Cartoon World" is decorated for it, but it doesn't work right.
The Sonic vs Shadow race was picked, but Eggman appeared instead & the characters wouldn't move. So, the machine basically stole 2 coins paid to play it because it wouldn't play. Real Sega Arcade machines are usually really good & always work...so that lands this one directly onto Suspicious Items. Discovered & photo by PrincessPandaLover.

Is this plush real or a fake?
It's certainly not any good...but 'no good' doesn't always mean 'not real'. There's nothing blatantly wrong with it, like missing fingers, wrong shoes or missed details. However, it's still really bad looking because the head comes across as way too round/no spikes definition. The ears are also way way too small for the doll, or are (possibly both) at a poor angle. His shoes are the right size, there's a bit of 'big body' going on, but the arms are pretty proportional too.
Without a tag or something to clearly push the poorly done doll one way or another, it's just a suspect. Photo discovered by Pichu97

This big nose plush is rather suspicious.
However, it is also clearly rather old, which really muddies the issue between 'real or fake alert'. The eye fabric is all pilly from wear and age. The limbs are also probably bent up/a little wilted due to use as well. It's ok in it's details for the most part, with proportional limbs/hands, but the nose is way too big and also low, and his lower face curve seems a little high/odd? The ears are also badly placed. The eye-blacks also have wear, so it's kind of hard to tell what's going on. The plush is clearly fairly large, but it doesn't seem to really have skimped on much. Of course, there's no tag to be found, but that's also pretty typical of older stuff. Have you seen a plush like this with some kind of proof? Photo discovered by Pichu97